5 Fundamental game mechanics
These five game mechanics are not all the fundamental game mechanics. They are five game mechanics that are particular useful for social software and web services. They’re useful, they’re low hanging fruit, they’re applicable. There’s a lot more sophisticated things you can do, but these five are a great place to start.
Points
The most fundamental thing that makes something seem like a game is points. People look at their Twitter followers and they see points. People look at the number of their friends and they see points. Anything that looks like points, smells like points, quacks like points is going to be points. Once you’ve got points you can do leader boards, if you choose. That’s why there’s “mayor” of Foursquare, because of points. Once you’ve got points, you can also do levels.
CollectingThe game mechanic of collecting is very main stream. Very familiar to people. You amass collectors. There’s baseball cards. There’s trading cards. There are Beanie Babies. There fans you’ve collected from your trip around the world. A lot of people are collectors. Badges are a good example of that. Badges tap into a collecting mechanic. Badges are interesting when there’s more to earn. You earn one badge, well there’s more. What does it mean to complete a set? If you can frame your badges as sets that you can complete, boom, you just tapped into the collecting mechanics.
Feedback
Feedback is not just games, of course. Feedback is good software design. Feedback is good user interaction design. But, games are particular good at feedback. And that’s why I consider it a game mechanic. If you’re ever played any games like Rock Band or Karaoke Revolution or Guitar Hero, those games gives you feedback on so many levels about what you’re doing they actually makes you better at your skill. And that’s what feedback fundamental does. It keeps you on the road to mastery. It tells you if you’re on the right track. It helps you get better like a great coach. That’s what great feedback does. The better your feedback the more it’s going to feel like a game and an engrossing system.
Exchanges
Taking turns — or exchanges is the shorthand I use for that. Playing chess is taking turns. Having a conversation is taking turns. Many games have this back and forth of taking turns. Tit for tat is taking turns. Giving and receiving a gift is taking turns. This taps into this very fundamental human engagement of, “its my turn, it’s your turn, it’s my turn, it’s your turn…” which is one of the most basic game mechanics we learn as kids, wait your turn. And you can tap into that. Humans are very familiar with what a conversation feels like, and if your system feels like a conversation. Feels like taking turns, you’re going to draw people in.
CutomizationIt can be customizing your character, like a World of Warcraft. Or blinging-out your profile on MySpace. Those are both great examples of customization. Any time you have a rich profile you can decorate….All that kind of customization was really pioneered by games. And thinking about how to allow people to customize their experience is much more what’s traditionally been in the gamer dynamic. Gamers customize their interfaces, customize their characters, etc. Now, what we’re seeing is that style of customizing both your identity and your environment is creeping into more everyday activities.
Make sure to checkout the excellent interview on Mixergy.com
